Guild Wars 2

Most avid pvp’rs know that speed and timing is what wins in mmo and fps games. Guild wars 2 is an excellent game, in my opinion the best mmo out, but it fails in one area that WOW does much better: fluidity and responsiveness. Now guild wars 2 isnt horrible (for some classes), but some classes feel unresponsive or have clunky, slow, and telegraphed animations. Ironically the best classes for pvp happen to be the most responsive, and the worst classes happen to be the least responsive.

I think arenanet did away with global cooldowns in favor of cast time and animations, but that is a double edged sword because the game feels less responsive than some of its competitors. There is also a drastic difference between animations speeds between the different classes.

If I play on my mesmer everything I do feels responsive and fluid. If I play on my warrior, I’m dealing with horribly slow animations which are extremely telegraphed, and have a general feeling of unresponsiveness. It is very common for the animations to be so slow on my warrior, that ability delay is upwards of 1-2 seconds. I feel this is the primary reason the warrior is so poor in pvp, they are simply slow, clunky, and unresponsive.

I think the best way to achieve better class balance is not by simply tinkering with traits and abilities, but also tightening up animations and class responsiveness. It seems arenanet has done this in the recent patch, by reducing the “aftercast” of many abilities. However the real fix is going to come from reducing the “precast” of these abilities, or speeding up their animations significantly.

Also: melee abilities which require you to stand still need to be reworked, redesigned, or offer some kind of invulnerability and extra range; otherwise these types of abilities will continue to be inconsistant in pvp and ranged play or jousting melee (by classes like thief/mesmer/ranger) will be the only effective kind.

Besides warrior and longbow ranger, which other classes are clunky? To say gw2 fails in this area is rather unfair imo. I main engie and ele. They both feel extremely fluid, especially since the new patch(Engie rifle, Ele staff). Yes there are clunky weapon sets, but I put them in the small minority. Never would have figured wow would be considered fluid. I played a mage and I had to stand still to cast. Not my definition of fluid. But I do agree with your general point. Anet needs to keep up the work on making more weapon sets fluid. They had good progress last patch and they mentioned in sotg they were looking at ranger longbow. So I expect more improvement next patch.

Nikkle.4013:

Besides warrior and longbow ranger, which other classes are clunky? To say gw2 fails in this area is rather unfair imo. I main engie and ele. They both feel extremely fluid, especially since the new patch(Engie rifle, Ele staff). Yes there are clunky weapon sets, but I put them in the small minority. Never would have figured wow would be considered fluid. I played a mage and I had to stand still to cast. Not my definition of fluid. But I do agree with your general point. Anet needs to keep up the work on making more weapon sets fluid. They had good progress last patch and they mentioned in sotg they were looking at ranger longbow. So I expect more improvement next patch.

Its mainly the warrior which feels really “laggy and unresponsive”. I only play mesmer and warrior, so those are the classes which I can really comment on. The mesmer feels fluid and responsive, meanwhile it feels like I am underwater and have 500 latency when playing the warrior.

God this times 194$2@481. I am literally floored when I play my other classes and then play warrior. kitten seriously the warr class feels like it’s from a completely different game, everything is slow and clunky. Response times of skills are terrible. Serious problem.

But yet the devs continue to ignore it, and nerf our damage (lol, all we had).

I’m not sure which classes feel clunky honestly. In fact, gw2 combat is much smoother than many mmos I played. (Rift, tera etc) I’m not sure of why the warrior is unresponsive. Cast times or animations tend to be long on certain skills and after cast only on the hammer. Or is it projectile speeds? Few skills require you to stand still. Most skills can be cancelled and put on a 1-2s cooldown by sheathing your weapon. Warriors may have difficulty landing skills, but that’s because other classes can kite too easily.

Actually it’s a matter of getting used to the game. I know many who initially complained about clunky combat did get hooked after long hours after getting into the game. In fact this game may be too fast and responsive such that it may seem like everyone is spamming skills.

I think I get what you are talking about.

I tried Mace/shield + Greatsword warrior. One of the core combos is
Skull Crack → Weapon Swap → Hundred Blades.

Considering the stun duration is barely enough to land a full 100 blades combo (as it should be), I quickly press the weapon swap button and the button for weapon skill #2.

Well, 50% of the time the game doesn’t read my weapon swap, thus my combo fails.

I probably should button mash the swap to be sure. But that is not “smooth gameplay”. Not at all.